Victim advocates try to sway bishops on eve of abuse vote

Bishops expected to adopt new policy dealing with sexual abuse

Associated Press

Published Wednesday, November 13, 2002

WASHINGTON (AP) -- On the margins of the U.S. Roman Catholic bishops' meeting, sex abuse victims pressured church leaders one last time Tuesday to toughen their policy for dealing with molesters in the clergy.

The activists, barred from speaking to reporters in the lobby of the prelates' hotel, gathered across the street to question the bishops' assertion that their new plan shows the church has transformed itself. The bishops are expected to adopt the policy today.

"In the next 24 hours, we will still do everything we can to improve the bishops' policy," said Terrie Light of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "We call upon these bishops to keep moving forward in their own dioceses."

Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Conn., who helped oversee revisions in the plan under consideration, said the church leaders agreed last June to remove all molesters from active ministry and maintain that commitment.

"It may be that people who are in such pain right now can't see that," Lori said. "It may take some time."

The bishops originally passed a disciplinary plan when they met five months ago in Dallas. The policy before the group now is a revision negotiated with the Vatican that gives priests greater protection and privacy while church authorities investigate abuse claims against them. It also underscores that bishops, not lay people, have the authority to oversee clergy.

Once the policy is approved, it will be sent to the Vatican for a final review and will then become church law in the United States.

The Survivors Network believes the new plan leaves too much discretion to the bishops on issues such as whether to report abuse claims to civil authorities. The victims are particularly upset that the document includes no measures to sanction prelates who do not follow the policy.

"There are no accountability measures among senior members of the Roman Catholic Church," said Peter Isely, a Survivors Network member.

But Bishop Joseph Galante, coadjutor of Dallas, argued the bishops this year formed the lay National Review Board and the Office for Child and Youth Protection to ensure dioceses meet the new standards. The office will issue a report on prelates' compliance each year.

The bishops also have promised that no matter what the requirements in the final document, they will notify civil authorities of all abuse cases involving children.

Throughout the bishops' meeting this week, victims have felt left out.

They had unprecedented access to church leaders at the Dallas gathering, holding private talks with cardinals and addressing sessions attended by all the bishops. No such discussions were scheduled this week, even though the Survivors Network said it requested a role at the meeting.

Then Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the bishops' conference, spent a good deal of his opening address warning of fractures in the church caused by the abuse crisis, rather than solely stressing the damage done to victims.

"It's a fundamental, serious retreat," from the church's commitment to put victims first, said David Clohessy, the Survivors Network national director.

Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, who sparked the nationwide crisis when he acknowledged in January moving a pedophile priest from parish to parish, said Tuesday that the church needs to keep reaching out to victims.

"For 10 months I have been apologizing," he said, "and I think we don't need to do that only we once. I think we need to do it many times."

Also Tuesday, three homosexual Catholics with the gay rights' group Soulforce were handcuffed and led away without incident after staging a protest in the lobby of the bishops' hotel. Hotel security had barred protesters from the area.

The three claimed that they had been denied Holy Communion on Monday at a Mass for the bishops in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, even though the gays were not protesting there.

Susan Gibbs, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Washington, said the cathedral staff had misidentified the three as members of another gay rights group that publicly proclaims it tries to receive Holy Communion in protest of church teaching.

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On the Net:

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: www.usccb.org Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests: www.survivorsnetwork.org/